Only one name came to mind. Annica hesitated.
“I can see that there is something on your mind, Annica. It would be best if you would just say it.”
“Geoffrey Morgan. But she has known him several months, and he did not wish her harm. To the contrary, he was fond of her.”
“Geoffrey Morgan! Oh, heavens!” Sarah gasped. “He was sweet on Connie. We cannot allow him to hear this from the gossip mills or to read it in the Times.”
“Everyone will know by tonight, Sarah. This will feed the gossipmongers for at least a month,” Grace said.
“I must go to him at once. He will be devastated.”
“I will tell Morgan.” Tristan leaned back against his desk and crossed his arms. His thigh pressed against Mansfield Park, nearly toppling it from its precarious perch on the corner of his desk. He lifted it and held it carelessly in one hand. “Then you have no idea who might want Miss Bennington dead?”
Annica stared at the little book and held her breath, praying Tristan would not open it. She glanced at her friends. Though it had not been spoken aloud in her presence, she knew that they had not missed that Tristan, too, had served in the Royal Navy, that he had been sent to the Mediterranean.
“What are you thinking, Annica?”
She came back to herself with a start, then shrugged and glanced around at the group again. “Only one person we know might wish any of us harm. Roger Wilkes. ’Tis common knowledge that I gave him the cut sublime, and most of us have done so since. Mr. Wilkes could easily wish us dead.”
Tristan seemed to think this over. He frowned, then shook his head. One errant blond curl fell over his forehead, and he smoothed it back absently. He was so handsome that Annica could almost feel her heart breaking. How could the Wednesday League ever suspect him?
“It could not have been Wilkes,” he said.
“Tristan, his is the only name I can think of. If not Wilkes, then who?”
He shook his head, complete bafflement showing on his face.
Grace gave him a skeptical look. “Perhaps it was a vicious footpad. That makes as much sense as someone wishing her harm.”
He nodded. “Perhaps you are right, Grace. I shall report your answers to the constabulary. Nevertheless, it would have been nigh on impossible for Wilkes to have committed the crime. You see, I bumped into him last night.”
Annica’s heart stopped for one long moment. She noted the guarded looks that Charity, Grace and Sarah exchanged. Auberville and Wilkes? Together?
“I’ll find Morgan immediately after I’ve dealt with the authorities. Annica, I’d prefer it if you would not go out today. Humor me, my dear. I should be home by midafternoon. I believe there was something you wished to discuss with me.”
The room remained silent until he had gone, and Hodgeson with him. When the doors closed with a soft click, the ladies expelled their breath with an audible sigh.
Charity gulped her brandy and set her glass down with a bang. “What were you thinking, ‘Nica? You nearly gave us away.”
“Tristan could help us. If we just tell him—”
Grace cut her off and addressed the others. “She told him nothing he would not turn up with a little investigation. Mr. and Mrs. Bennington will remember about Frederika. All of creation knows we’ve been cutting Wilkes. Julius would be able to tell them about Constance and Morgan. None of these matters should undo us.”
“Undo us? Do you seriously think Auberville is the enemy?” Annica was nonplussed.
“He must suspect we know more than we are saying.” Charity ignored her and paused to blow her nose before she continued. “And he’d be correct.”
Sunlight streamed through the dormer windows. The nursery had a hollow, empty feeling despite its conversion to an artist’s studio. Annica sat with her back to the afternoon light and continued to work as Tristan paced the length of the long room.
“So I gather you suspected Ellen’s defection from Dennison?”
She nodded.
“And you did nothing to discourage that notion?”
“No.” She mixed yellow and red with a flat-edged palette knife. “I…I encouraged it.”
“And this is why you wanted to speak with me yestermorn?”
She added a dab more of red to the mixture and blended again. “I wanted to apprise you of the problem, m’lord, as I suspected the blame would be placed at my door. Your door, sir, now that you are held accountable for me.”
“Are you are still angry that I did not make time for you?” he asked. “I will not make that mistake again.”
Tears filled her eyes, glimmering at the edges but not spilling down her cheeks. Her emotions were so heightened that they were unreliable. One moment she was calm, the next she approached hysteria. She could not answer.
His voice was soft when he spoke again. “I thought, after last night, you had forgiven me.”
“I…cannot get the shade right,” she whispered. She pushed the jars in her paint box around, looking for another color to add to the mix. “I thought I had umber.”
“Annica, talk to me.” He took the palette and knife from her hands and set them aside. “Yesterday morning I could not shut you up, and today you will not say what is in your heart.”
“Please, Tristan. I must finish this before…”
He looked at the canvas and winced. She had sketched the outline of a woman standing on a windswept bluff overlooking the ocean. A closed book was held to her heart in one hand, and the other lifted an edge of her gown, as if she were walking.
He touched Annica’s shoulder. “You are afraid you will forget how Constance looked, are you not?”
She nodded, tears finally spilling down her cheeks.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
She shook her head and wiped her hands on a paint-smeared rag. The pain was still too raw to voice.
“Annica, you needn’t hide your grief from me.”
Hide? She and Tristan had both done their share of hiding—emotions, actions, motives—and the knowledge frustrated her. She slammed down the lid on her paint box and dropped a cloth over the unfinished painting.
Tristan stared at her for a long moment, as if he could not decide her mood, and she felt a stab of regret. She tried for a neutral subject. “Are you angry over my support of Ellen?”
“Very well, my dear,” he said after a pregnant pause, “since you are determined to discuss it, I have only one objection.”
“And what is that?”
“That you accept the blame.” He began pacing again. “Ellen begged off on her own. I will not have you the scapegoat for Ellen’s folly. I will put out the story that Dennison had second thoughts. That should salvage the man’s pride. Do not contradict me.”
“But it will make Ellen appear less desirable.”
“I am sorry for Ellen, but she must face the consequences of her own actions, Annica. This is her mess, and I won’t have you or Dennison suffering for it.”
“If you wish,” she replied wearily.
“Most men complain that their wives are matchmakers. I will not have society saying my wife is a matchbreaker.”
She lifted her chin and shrugged. “I’d already delayed in order to discuss this with you. Talk had begun. The suspicion regarding my involvement was being whispered abroad, especially after Uncle Thomas locked Ellen in her room.”
“I appreciate that, Annica, but you are never to paint yourself in an unfavorable light again.”
“I selected that story for the express purpose of sparing the Sayles and Sinclair names. I knew full well that society would not blame you for your ungovernable wife’s actions. That, I thought, is a better alternative than to have the ton thinking Ellen fickle. Since you were indifferent to the problem—”
“Bloody hell! I was not indifferent! I had business, Annica. There are other people depending upon me. I have more important things to do than indulge a demanding wife. You must be honest with me.”
�
�You are a fine one to lecture me on honesty!” she cried, her greatest fears surfacing.
“What, prithee, are you suggesting? Speak, Annica. Say it aloud and have done with it.”
“Very well, then! How can I be honest with you when our friendship began with a lie?” She turned to the wide school table and placed her hands, palms down, on the folio lying there.
He came to stand across the table from her, his face stony. “What was a lie?”
She opened the folio, seized one botanical canvas and sent it sailing across the room. “This!” she snapped. One by one, she did the same with the other canvases, almost relieved to have the subject in the open at last. “And this, and this, and this!”
“How did you find out?” he asked with a guarded expression.
“You were overheard discussing it and the tale was repeated to me. Aside from that, did you think I was so simpleminded that I would not notice when you ceased to take me to conservatories and gardens?”
“What were you told?” Tristan’s voice had gone flat.
Her heart fell with a breathless thud. Then it was true. “That you set out looking for a capable wife. One you would not have to supervise. One who would not make excessive demands. I gather you needed a woman to provide and raise your heirs with little fuss. And certainly my dowry played no small part—”
“It did not factor in at all, milady,” Tristan interrupted. “Of all my faults, I am not a fortune hunter. While it is true that I set out to find a capable woman, I fail to see the crime in that.”
“You had a right to look for whatever sort of woman you wish,” she agreed. “The crime lies in your deliberate hunting of me, and in your deception. I had a right to know your intentions, but you kept me unwary whilst you laid your trap.”
“Annica, I did not mean to hurt you. But how else was I to get past your defenses?”
She sank onto her little stool again. How, indeed? She had hardened her heart to the point that no man got further than a dance. “I had a right to know,” she repeated. “Why do you despise incapable women so?”
“I do not despise them, Annica. I simply do not have time for them.”
“Because you think them inferior?”
“Because I think them untrustworthy. If a woman is dependent upon a man, then she will shift her allegiance to whoever offers her the greatest attention and comfort. Incapable women are loyal to none but themselves.”
Annica felt her indignation fade as she recalled Tristan’s admission that his mother had left him. Somehow he had connected her weakness with dependence and disloyalty. How deeply he must have felt her betrayal.
“Did you think I would leave you, Tristan?”
He ignored her question. “If it is any comfort to you, my lady, before my trap was sprung I had come to the conclusion that you were going to be a great deal of trouble, and that, despite your reputation, you were not especially capable. I decided to go forward based on the fact that, notwithstanding those insufficiencies, you are intelligent and—”
“Manageable?” she guessed.
“You?” he scoffed. “Manageable?”
“You had no trouble at all backing me into a corner. You compromised me at the first opportunity, then demanded I marry you.”
Of all her accusations, Tristan called her to account for only one. “Do you mean to say that you’d never have married me had I not ‘compromised’ you?”
She saw the trap in his question and sidestepped with a charge of her own. “Had you allowed things to progress in a natural way—”
“Natural?” he mocked. “There is nothing natural in making progress with you, Annica. You were set on spinsterhood. You were not about to let any man close enough to love you.”
“You did not require love—only a capable woman who would manage your home and your family, while you are off…doing what, my lord?”
Tristan ignored her question. He placed his hands on the school table and leaned toward her. “We have both had our little deceptions, eh? And you, Annica? What is your game?”
“I do not—”
“Hold! Think first, Annica. I may not always know what you are up to, but I always know when you are lying.”
She stood and moved away, uncomfortable with his nearness. He had a way of unnerving her that always gave him the advantage.
“What is wrong, Annica?” he asked. A frown knit fine lines in his forehead and puckered the scar beneath his eye in a sinister fashion.
“Do you want it out in the open, milord?” she parried with a reckless toss of her head. “Very well. When I learned that your only requirement was a capable woman, I decided to see what you would do—indeed, if you would get rid of me altogether—if you thought your trap had snared a far different animal. I was as silly and simpering as some society brides I have observed.”
“Ah. Dressing in my favorite color, vacillating regarding calling cards and stationery, and asking my advice on trivial matters? I see. Then why have you not taken up needlepoint?”
She shrugged when she recalled her foolish promise. “Some things are simply too absurd to pretend.”
“I am relieved to know that you have limits.” Tristan straightened and folded his arms across his chest. “How long were you going to continue your little charade?”
“Until you confessed your scheme.”
“And if I did not?”
“Then you would be stuck with a simpering, inept wife. I must give you credit for more patience than I anticipated.”
“And now that your plan is exposed, what is next?”
“I shall likely not be able to find another way to confound or confuse you.”
Tristan smiled. “Do not discount your talents, milady. I have always been quite impressed with your resourcefulness.”
“Aside from your trap, what are you hiding?” she asked.
A veiled look settled over his features and he moved to distance himself from her. He turned when he was shrouded by the shadows between the dormer windows. The maneuver was almost more instinctive than contrived. She realized that Tristan was a man accustomed to hiding his emotions.
“If you have a question, Annica, you will have to be more specific,” he told her in a deep, even voice.
She shrugged. “Tell me what you do all day. And where you spend your evenings of late.”
“Different things and different places—as circumstances require.”
She tilted her chin, ready to do battle. “What were you doing with Roger Wilkes last night? How can you be so certain that miscreant did not murder Constance?”
“That is no concern of yours, Annica.”
“No? Then what, exactly, is my concern?”
He came forward, his face a study in regret. “Believe me, if it were possible to set your mind at ease, I would. All I can tell you is that you must not interfere with my business.”
Her eyes filled with tears again, but this time they were not for Constance. “Perhaps I shall take matters into my own hands, Tristan. With the right questions, I could find out nearly anything.”
“You will do no such thing, Annica. Questions could be dangerous. Remember Constance.”
She stared at him for a long moment, defying his edict wordlessly.
He reached out to her with one hand, looking as if he would touch her cheek or apologize. Long years under her father’s tutelage made her shrink away, and Tristan stopped in his tracks, a look of misery on his handsome face. He shook his head and dropped his hand.
“Soon, Annica, we shall settle this,” he murmured on his way to the door.
Chapter Nineteen
“Going to see Wilkes alone is not simply half-witted, it is insane,” Grace said. “I cannot imagine what has possessed you.”
“I am determined, Grace,” Annica answered. “Justice is everything. If the murderer thinks he has frightened us off, he is sadly mistaken.”
The interior of Grace’s coach was dim, and the blinds were pulled, affording her a measure of mod
esty as she tucked her shirttails into the waistband of her trousers. Grace stuffed her discarded gown and slippers into a small satchel.
Sarah held the vest while Annica slipped her arms through the holes. She nodded her agreement to Grace’s statement. “Why do you think he will give you any answers?”
“Money, Sarah. Mr. Wilkes needs traveling money. And he does not know he is meeting me. He thinks he is meeting a man named Nick. This outrage has gone on too long. Women are in grave danger, and no one seems to be able to do anything about it.” She buttoned the snug vest over her breasts, smoothing and diminishing their contours, before she donned the coat jacket. “I will be perfectly safe, Sarah. For one thing, I am not without protection.” She took her small pistol from the inside pocket of her jacket. “I doubt I will have to use it. Mr. Renquist arranged for us to meet in a public place, and he will not be far away. Anyway, Wilkes has an alibi for Constance’s murder.”
“Yes. Auberville,” Grace sighed. “I cannot believe I am saying this, but—who will vouch for him?”
“I will,” Annica said, ending that topic. “Leave my gown and slippers with Madame Marie. She will package them as a new delivery, wrap them in blue and send them to me by messenger.”
“We shall wait for you,” Grace stated.
“No! A private coach waiting outside the Bear and Bull would draw too much attention.”
“Annica is right,” Sarah admitted. Her firm little chin jutted out with the air of decision. “I shall go to Madame Marie’s tomorrow and have a pair of trousers made for myself. You should not have to go on these errands alone, Annica. I shall go with you in the future.”
Annica cringed, well-acquainted with Sarah’s feelings. After all, risk was what had made her feel alive until Auberville had taught her a “far more interesting way to flirt with disaster.” But Sarah had little experience to back up her new confidence, and there was a murderer and kidnapper loose. “I pray that tonight will be the last time I resort to a disguise.”
“What would Auberville do if he caught you?”
“I cannot even imagine.” She shivered and put the thought away before her own fears could get the better of her.
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